This project features a fifteen-minute, single-take silent film of myself crying beneath a static phrase reading the following: “a successful artwork is an evasion of reality that tells a larger or deeper truth. to succeed, the artist must avoid the following: being too literal and being too sentimental.” The phrase was taken from a conversation with poet, Prageeta Sharma, on the subject of art and sincerity.

By pairing this expression of raw, unchecked emotion with the censoring veil of critical language, the piece articulated a central issue emerging in this moment of my practice: how might I continue to make intelligent work while grieving a sudden and difficult death?

This piece was installed on informational screens throughout the Fine Arts Building at University of Montana in 2015, and again as part of the Solo Exhibition, “Dissonate,” at FrontierSpace Gallery in Missoula in 2015.